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Mayor Rob Ford and his staffers were offered 14 chances to respond to allegations that he was filmed smoking what appears to be crack cocaine before the Toronto Star published a front-page story about the scandal.

The Star provided a step-by-step account of its efforts to speak to the mayor as editors defended the paper’s reporting at an Ontario Press Council hearing Monday.

The mayor did not attend the hearing and did not respond to the Star’s request for comment on this story. He was invited to file a complaint with the press council so he could participate in the proceedings, but did not. The hearing would have been an opportunity for him to refute the story in a public forum.

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In the May 17 story by Robyn Doolittle and Kevin Donovan, Ford’s lawyer was quoted on the front page, saying the allegations were “false and defamatory.”

Despite that statement, Cooke told the panel, Ford has not taken legal action against the paper.

Ford has never addressed the crack video allegations in detail. Days after the Star investigation ran, he told reporters it was “ridiculous” and “another story with respect to the Toronto Star going after me.”

At a news conference a week later, he read a prepared statement: “I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine,” he said. “As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist.”

The Ontario Press Councilis not tasked with determining the truth of the allegations, only whether the story was responsibly reported. The Star’s editor nevertheless defended the accuracy of the crack video report.

“I tell you now, with great emphasis, that the story is true,” Cooke said. “Every word of it.”

The press council’s decision to hold a public hearing came after it received complaints from 41 readers — at least 30 anonymous and only six in writing — about the Star story and a Globe and Mail report alleging Councillor Doug Ford, the mayor’s brother, dealt hashish as a young man.

Press council members will look at three main issues in the Star story: whether it was in the public interest, whether adequate efforts were made to verify the allegations against Ford and whether he was given enough notice and a reasonable opportunity to respond.

Darylle Donley, whose complaint about the Star investigation prompted the hearing, chose not to elaborate on her written grievance, part of which read: “The Ford brothers are being lied about, innuendos and allegations are being made against them. The news should be concrete and proven truth.”

Donley also speculated in her complaint about whether the sources in the Star story, described as drug dealers, were “two real people” and, if so, whether they would have been “capable of creative videography.” She left the hearing without taking questions from reporters.

“I’m happy it’s over,” she told a Star reporter who reached her by phone, declining to comment further.

Don McCurdy, the council’s executive director, said his staff reached out to the mayor multiple times about participating in the proceedings. The council contacted the mayor’s office as late as Friday morning, but didn’t get a response. Doug Ford likewise did not respond to council invitations to participate in the Globe and Mail hearing.

Asked whether the panel would have questioned the mayor on the truth of the allegations had he attended the hearing, McCurdy said he couldn’t speculate because he wasn’t on the panel. “Someone may have asked that,” he said when pressed further, “but I’m not suggesting it was on a list of questions to ask anybody.”

With hearings for the Star and Globe stories concluded, the press council could deliver decisions as early as the end of the month. If the council rules against them, the papers are required to publish the written decisions in full.

Christopher Waddell, director of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication in Ottawa, has been following coverage of the Ford brothers’ drug allegations closely and said the circumstances surrounding the Monday press council hearings seemed “a little strange.”

“This is a little bit of a curious case in that the people who you would think would have the main reason to be complaining don’t appear to be complaining,” he said.

“There is no evidence, so far, that in either case the paper has got it wrong,” Waddell continued. “And one would think it would be fairly easy and simple to come up with evidence to show that they were wrong if in fact they were wrong.”

Star reporters Doolittle and Donovan viewed the video on May 3 this year after they were contacted by a source trying to sell it. They watched it three times and took notes separately. The reporters were in the process of trying to convince sources to give them the video when the U.S. news website Gawker on May 16 posted its own account of having viewed it. The Star published its story online a few hours later and in the paper the next day.

“It became a news event,” Donovan told the panel when questioned about the timing. “It would have been wrong for us to stay silent.”

A team of reporters attempted to contact Ford, his brother or staffers at least 14 times the night the story broke. Donovan said they weren’t able to address the allegations with the mayor earlier because of a promise made to their source, who was scared of what might happen if anyone found out the video was being shopped around.

Asked by a panel member if he ever questioned whether the video could be a fake, Donovan said its authenticity was a concern until the night he and Doolittle watched it.

“My concern that it was fake vanished,” he said. “It was clearly real.”

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